Wanderer
In order to understand the reason why poet Basho was trying to recapture the old during his journey to the north in his poetic diary "A Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches", one has to look at his background first to understand why he decided to leave his life behind and to make such dangerous trip. Basho lived in a small wooden hut near Edo; which is present day Tokyo. He planed a banana tree in front of his yard. Thus gives his house a famous name the Basho Hut. He had a quiet but rich life during this time. He had many friends, disciples, and patrons; He wrote many haiku form poems and had many students who visited him every day. (pg 25) But all these changed after a couple of events occurred during this period. First, that was a fire which destroyed his famous Basho Hut thus makes him homeless, (pg 27) and probably the idea that man is eternally homeless began haunting his mind more and more frequently. A few months later he received news from his family home that his mother had died. (pg 29) Since his father had died already, he was now not only without a home but without a parent to return to. Although he rebuilt his Basho Hut later, it was not enough to sweep away with his melancholy and e
At these places we are moved to a sense of the loneliness of the traveler, feelings of awe or respect, feelings of yearning for the past. He describes in his diary: "This tree had been planted, cut, and replanted several times in the past, but just when I came to see it myself; it was in its original shape after a lapse of perhaps a thousand years, the most beautiful shape one could possibly think of for a pine tree. It was unquestionably a monument of a thousand years. Having been cut down and replanted several times, it has suffered and survived. (pg 113) This encounter reflects Basho's continuing search for self-realization. He sees in this monument the "living presence of the ancients" and rejoices so at the encounter that he forgets the travail of his journey and is moved to tears of emotion. In the mind of the Basho, each soldier's dream is compared to each blade of grass. Being powerfully moved by this experience Basho forgot the trials and rigors of traveling. During his short stop at town Rapid's Head, he stopped at warrior Sato's house. The temple is a human creation, an artistic masterpiece, which has not only survived the ages; it has defied the ruinous forces of nature as well. Through the journey he wanted, among other things, to face death and thereby to help temper his mind and his poetry. Basho emphasizes that compare to space and time; human ambitions will utterly fade away. A thicket of summer grassIs all that remainsOf the dreams and ambitionsOf ancient warriors. This is a poem of parting, but it is not sad or melancholy. Basho visited places of remarkable natural interest and beauty, places rich with historical significance and poetic sites.
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Acceptance Essays
